


Bake At Three-Fifty, Check After Six Minutes

by Fools_Rush_In_TAZ



Category: Cookie Clicker
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-27 04:23:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21386032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fools_Rush_In_TAZ/pseuds/Fools_Rush_In_TAZ
Summary: Can baking cure a broken heart?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Bake At Three-Fifty, Check After Six Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back, and I'm writing Cookie Clicker fanfic now. 
> 
> Also, all that has begun will be concluded, I promise on my heart.

You bake a cookie. This upsets no one. Except for you.

Your first batch? Garbage. Inedible. How could you do such a thing? All you wanted to do was make people happy. But these will make no one happy. You throw them away, and the local wildlife pass them by. You go to bed, and stay there for several days, barely even summoning the energy to moan in agony. 

As time passes, you summon the energy to rise from bed, and march yourself to the kitchen, your fleece blanket still wrapped around your shoulders, ready to try again. You cautiously take down your all-purpose flour from the cabinet above the fridge, your sugar from below the microwave, and your oat milk-you’ve been trying to go vegan-from the refrigerator, and cream them in a mixing bowl to make dough. As your hand reaches for your heavy wooden spoon, you freeze. Can you do this to yourself again? Can you endure the disappointment of another failure?

You weren’t always like this. This… hard on yourself, this scared. You were a child once. You played, you laughed, you fell and scraped your knees and stood back up again. You were happy all the time, unless you weren’t, but those moments were too few to dwell on. When did you become so sad? When did that kid become this nervous, shaky adult, too scared to even bake? 

You shake off these thoughts. You add margarine, you add vanilla and the special vegan chocolate you bought. You mix it all up in your grandmother’s ancient stand mixer, and into the oven it goes. Now you can rest. You collapse, worn out from your efforts. As you lie panting on the floor of the kitchen, panic comes for you. It rises like the tide in your chest, through your neck and into your brain. You wail, once. You know the feeling intimately. It feels like the opposite of an orgasm. You feel the waves of the panic crash down in your mind, reach crescendo, and subside. You rise to your hands and knees, pick up your blanket where it fell, and cuddle it to your chest. Your heart hurts. That’s nothing new.

You need to distract yourself. You need it like you need oxygen. Music, a movie, something to make you feel less alone. You pick up your computer, and you put it down. You pace, trying to think of something. You call your mother, who doesn’t answer. You call your grandmother, who does.

“Hello? Darling, is that you?”

“Hi, Grammy. It’s me,” you say as you wipe your sweating palms on your pajamas. “How are you?”

“I’m fine, dearest. How are you?”

How are you? That’s a good question. You think about your grandmother, and all that she’s been through: the loss of your grandfather, the loss of her son your father, the polio that took her ability to walk, the war that took her ability to see. You think you should go visit her soon, then you decide against it. Leaving the house… it’s just too hard. You laugh, and you hate the sound that you make. If your grandmother could see you, wouldn’t she hate what she saw? This wretch of a baker, wailing and gnashing teeth on the kitchen floor. Having panic attacks over nothing. Not daring to venture into the world that she has lived in for most of a century. What a joke you are. But, how are you?

“I’m fine also, Grammy. I love you.”

At least that’s something true.

“I love you, babydoll. Is everything okay?”

“Of course!” you lie. “I wanted to ask you, how long should I leave cookies in the oven? You were always the master baker at home.”

She laughs, and the sound warms you. “Check them after six minutes, then let them go until you’re happy with them.” She senses something is wrong with you, in the way grandmothers always can. “That’s the way of everything, baby. Let it go until you’re happy with it.”

You make pleasant small talk until the cookies are ready, and then you say goodbye. You remove the cookies from the oven with the watermelon-patterned oven mitt you thought was so cute in the shop, and hesitate. Should you taste them? Can you handle another failure?

You decide yes, you have to taste them. You pick one up and taste it, and the molten chocolate burns your mouth quite badly. You curse and drop the cookie. You take several deep breaths to stave off tears as your mouth stings and suffers. You collapse again, dropping to a kneeling position and covering your head with your hands and the blanket. Tears come. But you wipe them away and stand back up. You pick up another cookie, and blow on it this time. You taste it. 

It’s delicious.


End file.
